Gorgeous
by LGCoffeeAddict
Summary: Addison and Derek run into each other at a medical conference in New York, and they haven't spoken since she moved to LA two years ago. What happens when they are announced to the conference as husband and wife and they decide to play along?
1. Chapter 1

Gorgeous

A **Grey's Anatomy **fic by Gigi

**Disclaimer:** I obviously do not own a single shred of Grey's Anatomy, its characters or Shonda, otherwise you would be seeing my story lines Thursdays at 9 on ABC, not on _this_.

Chapter 1: Gorgeous

**A/N: I'm sitting here watching the Parent Trap, and I thought I would combine this with another idea I got from review by the original pink lady because I'm seriously in an Addie mood. This chapter is a doozy, so get comfortable. Not all the chapters are going to be this long, but I wrote this while on vacation with no internet access, and I had a lot to say. So yeah, enjoy!**

Addison loved being back in New York City.

As she made her way through the streets of Manhattan, she couldn't help but breathe in the fresh, smokey and food-filled air of the city. It reminded her of when she lived there.

_Those were such happy days_, she thought wistfully.

Shaking off the nostalgia, Addison ducked out of the chilly air into the Millennium Hotel. She smiled at the concierge and started to remove her black leather gloves. "Hi, could you tell me where Conference Room B is?" she asked the young, cheery woman behind the counter.

"Are you here for the medical conference?" Addison nodded. "Okay, have you checked into your room yet?"

"No, I haven't. I'm afraid I'm running a little late, so I'll just check in later." Addison brought her rolling suitcase up to rest. "Would you mind holding my bag until the opening brunch is over?"

"Of course, Dr...?" the woman—her name tag read Eliza—prompted.

"Montgomery," Addison supplied, handing the woman the suitcase as she came out from behind the counter.

"Of course, Dr. Montgomery," the concierge smiled. "Conference Room B is just down that hall, second door on your right," she indicated, pointing to the corridor to her left.

"Thank you." Addison flashed her one last smile before hastening to get to the brunch before all the speaking started. The last thing she wanted to do was create a spectacle of herself. She sighed in relief when she realized all the doctors were still standing and getting to know each other. Slipping into the room as inconspicuously as possible, she got in line for the assortment of pastries and fruit, having skipped breakfast in her rush to get to the conference in time.

She stood behind a tall man with dark, wavy hair, but in her hunger, she didn't pay much attention to him. Her eyes remained fixed on the last blueberry muffin that lay on the plate halfway down the table. When the man in front of her picked it up and put it on his plate, she let out a small whimper. Blueberry muffins were the only muffins she liked, and now there were none left.

The man must have heard her small bleat, because he started chuckling softly to himself. Addison never appreciated being laughed at, so she grabbed a strawberry muffin and boldly thrust it in front of her, just past his left arm so he could see it. "My strawberry for your blueberry?" she offered in a challenging voice.

Suddenly, the man's head whipped around at the sound of her voice, and Addison almost dropped the muffin in her hand in surprise.

Standing before her was a man a few inches taller than herself, with shockingly bright blue eyes, a kind smile and unbelievably amazing hair. Standing before her was none other than Derek Shepherd.

"Addison?" he choked, unable to comprehend the sight his eyes beheld. He hadn't seen her once after she moved to LA two years ago, but he hadn't realized until just then how much he missed her. Yes, he was with Meredith even when Addison lived in Seattle, but at least then Derek still saw that vibrant red hair, those pale blue eyes and those long, sexy legs every day.

His voice snapped Addison out of her daze, and her eyes slid back into focus on her ex-husband's face. "H-Hey, Derek," she stammered. She dropped her gaze and realized she still held out the strawberry muffin. "So do we have a deal?"

Derek looked down at the muffin and smiled to himself in amusement. Looking back up at Addison, he teased, "So you're telling me that in the two years since I've seen you, you still haven't developed a liking for another flavored muffin?" Addison's face grew stubborn and she jutted her chin out in answer to his question. "And you think I have?" Her face fell when she understood what he was saying.

"It's just that blueberry is the only one I like, you know that," Addison whined, stepping out of the line to allow the person behind her to get food.

"And _you_ know that blueberry is the only one _I _like," Derek retorted, smiling fondly at their bickering. "So I guess we're at an impasse."

"No, we're not," she corrected, placing one hand on her hip. "You could be the gentleman and give the pretty, hungry lady your blueberry muffin." Addison was suddenly slammed with a surge of deja vu. They'd always fought like this in med school when they'd first started going out. He'd actually kissed her for the very first time during one of these arguments, proclaiming it was to shut her up.

It seemed Derek had the same flashback, because his eyes became much more thoughtful. "How about we share it?" he suggested. He took the strawberry muffin from her still outstretched hand and placed it back on the platter. "Deal?"

Addison hesitated just for a second before conceding. "Fine," she muttered, walking over to a table. As Derek followed her, he admired the subtle tan that made her skin glow softly, and he couldn't help but notice her body. Addison was always a knockout, but now she was in better shape than ever, and it showed. She had a body twenty-two year-olds would die for.

"No, no," he stopped her from using a knife to split the muffin down the middle. "I said we'd _share_ it, not _split_ it. You don't _split_ a blueberry muffin."

Addison rolled her eyes at her ex-husband. "You're such a little kid, you know that?" Derek flashed her a smile she hadn't seen in almost three years, since he asked her to go to prom with him. It wasn't his self-proclaimed "McDreamy" smile, but a smile that she always thought of as his "Addison" smile. It was a smile that was all her own, and she never saw him give Meredith _that_ smile. She and all the other moronic interns at Seattle Grace thought that the McDreamy was his best smile that he reserved for Meredith, but Addison knew better. His McDreamy smile was nothing compared to his Addison smile.

Before Derek could reply, the sound of someone clearing his throat echoed throughout the large room. All the doctors' heads swiveled to the front of the room, where a short, slightly balding man stood in front of a microphone.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the man began in an alarmingly low voice, "I'd like to welcome you to the 2009 Continuing Medical Education Conference." Addison and Derek looked at each other, trying to fight back the gales of laughter that threatened to burst from their mouths. "I am extremely excited for this conference to begin. We have a great many amazing speakers this year, including Dr. Derek Shepherd, a world-renowned neurosurgeon who will be speaking about his recently published Shepherd Method, and his wife, Dr. Addison Montgomery-Shepherd, a world-class neonatal surgeon who will be leading a seminar on TTTS. We also are pleased to welcome..."

The speaker's voice ceased being heard by Derek and Addison. They couldn't tear their eyes away from each other. Leaning forward, Derek whispered into Addison's ear, "Wife?"

Addison closed her eyes for a moment before responding just as quietly into his ear. "I haven't had to renew my medical license since I moved to LA, and I must have forgotten to change the name." She pulled away and mouthed an apology.

Derek shook his head and took her hand, squeezing it softly to show he wasn't upset. Just then, it occurred to Addison how much they truly looked like husband and wife. They were sitting at the same table, sharing a muffin, sharing private laughs about the speaker, whispering in each other's ears and now holding hands. Strangely enough, Addison had no desire to break the illusion.

After a few seconds of listening to the stumpy man continue to shower praise on the guest speakers, Derek leaned in once again. "We don't want to make a scene, do we?" Addison shook her head. "Then we should probably just go along with the husband and wife thing, shouldn't we?"

Addison's eyes widened. She hadn't actually given voice to her thoughts, had she? No, she was sure she hadn't. This was all Derek's idea. _Derek_ wanted to act like her husband. "R-Right," she heard herself say. Then, through some bout of insanity surely, she proposed—an odd word to use given the topic of their discussion—something else. "We'll need rings, then."

**8D**

Addison and Derek walked out of the conference room together, laughing quietly as Derek did another impression of the commencement speaker that almost had Addison doubled over.

"Dr. Montgomery," the concierge called out from behind her desk. "Would you like to check in now?"

Addison looked at Derek and when he nodded, said, "Yes, please," as she walked over to the counter. The concierge spent a few seconds typing on the computer, her brow furrowed in confusion. "Is there a problem?"

"I'm sorry, Dr. Montgomery, but I can't seem to find you in the system," Eliza stated.

"Oh, try under Shepherd," Derek chimed in. "There should be a room for two."

Addison caught Derek's eye and asked him softly, "You came late, too?" He nodded, smiling.

"I have a room for a Dr. Shepherd and a Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd," Eliza announced, looking at the two curiously.

"I'm Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd," Addison declared, taking hold of Derek's hand. "Dr. Shepherd is my husband." It had been so long since she had said those words, and it felt so nice to be able to say them again that her smile widened ever so slightly.

Eliza's eyes flickered to their entwined hands, obviously looking for rings and not finding any. "Um, okay, then," she stammered, puzzled. She typed a few more things into the computer and swiped two keycards into it. "These are your keys. You're in room 2214."

"Thank you," Addison smiled, retrieving her suitcase from the blonde concierge. As they turned to leave, Addison murmured, "We have got to get some rings fast."

**8D**

"That was an amazing room," Addison announced as she and Derek walked down 3rd Street. "It was much bigger than I expected it to be." She slipped on her gloves and buried her hands in her white Burberry trench coat.

"It was," Derek agreed, looking over at his "wife." "Cold, are we?"

"Shut up," she snapped lightly. "I've been living in LA for two years. I'm not used to it anymore."

Derek laughed and placed his arm around Addison's shoulders, bringing her closer to his body to warm her up. "Better?" She turned her head and looked up into Derek's eyes. She nodded shyly. "See? Living in Seattle has its perks."

"What? Being in a cold, rainy, gloomy environment year-round helps you the one time you go to New York in three years?" Addison shot back, grinning at their banter. It had been a _very_ long time since they had been this comfortable with each other, maybe even when they were last in New York together.

_See?_ she thought to herself. _New York is magic enough to make us get along again._

"Yeah, it does." He couldn't back down now, even after Addison made such a valid point as that. "So how come you never came and visited?" he asked in a more solemn voice.

"Seattle?" He nodded. "It would have been too painful," she admitted, breaking her gaze from Derek and looking at the street in front of her. "Seattle doesn't really carry any good memories for me."

"I'm sorry," Derek apologized sincerely. Addison turned her head once more and saw remorse written all over his face. "I was probably responsible for most of the not-good memories."

A sad smile adorned her face as she looked straight ahead again. "Yeah, but I can't hold you entirely accountable. Some other people contributed, too."

"Like who?"

"Well, other than you, there was Mark, Karev, Meredith, everyone calling me Satan and McBitch--"

"Whoa, why Karev?" Derek interrupted her.

_Shit_. Addison closed her eyes, hoping that when she opened them again she wouldn't have mentioned Karev's name. She opened them again. Nope. She had still said it. _I wasn't expecting to open that can of worms_. "Karev and I might have had a little thing in the few months before I left."

"Meaning..." he prompted, genuinely curious. Maybe he would finally understand why she left so quickly.

Addison sighed. She had to tell him everything now, and everything included a whole lot more than her fling with her intern. "I aborted Mark's baby," she told him. She felt the arm wrapped around her tense up slightly as all the bad memories from the night he left her came bubbling to the surface. "It was about two months after you left, and I couldn't imagine having a baby with anyone except you. So I got the abortion and went to Seattle as soon as I recovered."

"What does that have to do with Karev?"

Nodding, Addison continued. "Well, Mark joined Seattle Grace a couple months after that, and then when the week of the due date came, he was awful to me. He hated the fact that I'd killed his baby, and he let me know it. Anyway, he said something along the lines of, 'You don't get to be on the high horse, Addison, not this week,' in front of Karev. And later Karev got Mark a vanilla latte."

"Mark hates those," Derek interrupted again as the wheels started turning in his head. Addison and Alex _had_ become closer in the time he'd been assigned to her service. And then he blew up at her in front of Derek and told Addison it might be too late to save the patient and her baby, and he was off her service. But he'd suddenly gotten back on her service, and now Derek was starting to understand why.

"Yeah, he does, so he told Karev that if he couldn't handle coffee, he couldn't handle plastics. I was standing right there and he told Karev to go back to gynie. I felt bad for Karev getting whacked on the nose when I was the reason Mark was upset, so I let him in on the Laura Grey case." Addison couldn't believe how vividly she remembered all this. It was two years ago, and yet the details came to her as easily as if it had happened yesterday. "In the NICU, we got to talking and then he said he gave Mark the vanilla latte on purpose."

"Why?" Derek echoed Addison's question from two years before.

"Because Mark was rude to me," Addison answered softly, still touched by the gesture. "It sort of started from there. We almost kissed right then, but we were interrupted. We eventually _did_ kiss, but then he told me he wasn't interested, and we went right back to being teacher and intern. Then Ava happened, and I saw a side of him that I hadn't seen since that conversation in the NICU. It made me fall for him just a little bit more." Somewhere in the back of her mind, a voice was screaming about how completely wrong it was to be talking about this with her ex-husband, but it apparently had no effect because Addison kept on talking. "We got closer, and then we slept together once. And he dumped me again. That's when I went to visit Naomi and Sam in LA," she finished. "Alex was kind of the last straw for me."

Derek stared at the woman he half-hugged as they walked through the throngs of New York inhabitants and tourists. Even after so long, he could tell what that intern had done still hurt her. "You really liked him, didn't you?"

Addison nodded, biting her bottom lip softly. "I probably could have loved him, given enough time," she confided. "But it doesn't really matter anymore. Are you still with Meredith?" She needed to deflect the conversation away from herself before she became even more emotional.

"Yeah, I am," he answered slowly. He knew what she was doing, but he didn't have the heart to call her on it. "But things have been a little rocky lately."

"Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, everything is fine. It's just that she's such a _kid_ sometimes, and..." Derek didn't really want to get into it after all the time they'd spent talking about Addison's heartbreak. He didn't need to remind her of the woman that had precipitated the biggest heartbreak of all. "This conference came at just the right time, in all honesty."

They finally reached the jewelry store they'd been walking to for the last fifteen minutes. DeMaria's Jewelers. "Ready to pick out some rings?" Addison encouraged, striving for their easy conversation from before. She ducked out from Derek's embrace and instead took his hand, leading him inside.

**8D**

"Derek, where are we going?" Addison asked as he pulled her along by her hand, holding the bag from DeMaria's.

"You'll see in a second," he insisted. They walked for a few more blocks like that until they finally reached a bench in Central Park. His eyes roamed over the wooden seat and finally alighted on a small inscription in the corner. "On September 6, 1995, Derek Christopher Shepherd proposed to Addison Forbes Montgomery on this very bench," he read the messy carving aloud.

"That's still there?" Addison gasped as she bent over the bench and saw the words they'd carved into the bench fourteen years ago.

"I figured it would be an appropriate place for me to put these rings on your finger," Derek said, reaching into the jewelry store bag and extracting a velvet box. Kneeling down, Derek opened the box and revealed two rings. "Addison Forbes Montgomery," he began with a dopey grin on his face, "will you do me the honor of being my wife for our time in New York?"

Addison nodded, unable to say the the word yes for the laughter. She held out her left hand, and Derek slid the two rings onto her fourth finger. They'd managed to find a pair of rings that were almost exactly what the original ones used to be, especially since he'd bought her engagement ring from DeMaria's fourteen years ago.

"Aw," an elderly couple passing by cooed, drawing the two doctors' attention. Derek was still on one knee, holding the rings on Addison's outstretched hand. "Go on, give her a kiss," the grandmotherly woman urged excitedly.

Derek locked eyes with the woman standing in front of him and let her know what was coming. They had to be convincing, because with their luck, this old woman and her husband would very well go back and tell the commencement speaker that the Shepherd marriage was a sham.

Plastering on a smile, Derek swiftly stood and gathered Addison into his arms, capturing her lips with his. Both their eyes slid shut as the world quickly dissolved around them.

Addison slowly snaked her arms up around his neck, her hands pulling his face closer to hers. Even after over three years of not having his lips on hers, she still reveled in his kisses. She felt his tongue trace her lips, which she soon parted to give him better access. A soft moan emitted from her mouth when he gently bit her bottom lip, and it was immediately followed by a small whimper when they had to separate and breathe, their foreheads leaning on one another.

Panting slightly, Addison gradually lifted her eyes to Derek's. A smile adorned her face in spite of herself. "Let's hope Meredith is okay with you kissing your ex-wife," she whispered. "It seems we'll be doing that a lot during this conference."

"Aren't they just adorable?" the old woman asked her husband. "Congratulations, you two," she said to the couple who still hadn't moved from their embrace. After receiving a small wave from one of the hands the redhead had draped around Derek's neck, the elderly couple continued their walk.

"How about we just don't tell her?" Derek suggested, smiling every bit as much as Addison was. "Wouldn't want to ruin it."

**8D**

"My lips hurt," Addison complained as she and Derek entered their hotel room. "Is there any ice?"

"I don't think I've ever kissed a woman that much in one day in my life," Derek commented, reaching into the mini-fridge and pulling out two cubes of ice. Handing one to Addison, he placed the other one on his own lips.

"Why did we have so many friends when we were married?" Addison demanded, putting the ice to her lips.

"I don't know," Derek answered. He sat down next to her on the king-sized bed. "But I don't understand why they kept asking us if we were fighting. It seems we had to always be touching to offset any suspicion."

"I don't remember being that nauseating when we were married." Addison kicked off her stilettos and wiggled her toes before flopping down onto her back.

"Me neither." Derek, too, lay on his back. "And why did they insist on taking so many pictures of us?"

"And why _kissing_?" the woman lying next to him amended. "Ugh, who knew that being a pair of world-class surgeons would lead to us being fake-married guest speakers at a CME conference?"

"And who would have thought that we would have permanently bruised lips after that?"

Addison turned her head to the side and nudged Derek in the shoulder. "Are they black and blue?" she asked, removing the ice cube to reveal glossy, swollen lips. Somehow the sight of those lips made the soreness in Derek's disappear completely. His eyes darkened a shade as he slowly shook his head.

"They look gorgeous," he said huskily. Addison blinked at the desire dripping in her ex-husband's voice, her mouth opening slightly. "I-I mean..." Derek tried to recover.

Addison placed two cool fingers on his lips, silencing him. "You could have saved yourself a moment of stuttering by just saying they weren't black and blue," she teased lightly.

Derek's shockingly blue eyes burned with intensity as he stared into Addison's pale blue ones. Little by little, he reached up and pushed her hand away from his face. He leaned in just by an inch and whispered, "How about we stay fake-married tonight?"

Disconcerted by his gaze, it took Addison a few seconds to form a single word. "What?"

"We got fake-married today," he explained, "so how about we make this our fake-wedding night?"

The proposition was so unlike Derek that she actually thought he was kidding at first. A smile crept on her face as she opened her mouth to laugh his question off, but when the look in Derek's eyes didn't change, the smile faded away quickly. "Just the one night?" He nodded. Addison bit her bottom lip the way she always did when she couldn't decide, and she promptly stopped when the pain started again. "But what about our lips?"

"I don't know about you, but the soreness in my lips left as soon as you took away that ice cube," he responded directly. "I miss you, Addie."

Addison's heart skipped a beat when she heard her nickname slip past his lips. It had been years since she'd heard anyone call her that, but that suddenly became the decisive factor. Taking a deep breath—which made her chest rise considerably, a fact that did not go unnoticed by a certain neurosurgeon—she exhaled, "Okay."

When their lips met in a fiery, passionate kiss, all thoughts of soreness and medical conferences flew out the window.

**8D**

The sunlight pricked Addison's eyelids, nudging them open at seven o'clock in the morning. She stretched out her arms and arched her back lazily when her left hand grazed against a bare back. Opening her eyes completely, she saw a very naked Derek lying on his stomach in the middle of the king-sized bed, with one of his arms draped across her stomach. As the night's events slowly pieced themselves together in Addison's brain, her smile grew bigger and bigger.

She glanced down at the arm on her stomach and glimpsed the golden wedding band nestled on his fourth finger.

She liked this whole fake-married idea.

**A/N: Okay, I'm sorry for all you not-Addisex fans out there, but I **_**had**_** to slip a little Addisex love in there. I mean, this is a whopping 4183 word chapter, and I don't want to split it up at all. I couldn't **_**not**_** have a little Addisex love in there. Don't worry, this is **_**not**_** a one-shot. I'm going to have way too much fun with this fic, and so I hope you don't kill my fun by not reviewing. Don't you just love double negatives? What I meant to say amid all my babbling is **_**REVIEW!!**_


	2. In Another Time

Gorgeous

A **Grey's Anatomy **fic by Gigi

**Disclaimer:** I obviously do not own a single shred of Grey's Anatomy, its characters or Shonda, otherwise you would be seeing my story lines Thursdays at 9 on ABC, not on _this_.

Chapter 2: In Another Time

**A/N: Oh, my god. I don't think I've ever had such a response to one chapter before. Thirty-one reviews? How the hell am I going to repeat that? I'm **_**so**_** flattered, guys. It's not even funny how happy that made me. I'm also glad I didn't get verbally stoned for slippng in the Addisex fluff, because I love them together even more than Addison and Derek. Anyway, enjoy chapter 2!**

_She glanced down at the arm on her stomach and glimpsed the golden wedding band nestled on his fourth finger. _

_She liked this whole fake-married idea._

Addison stood at the head of the hall, lecturing a packed room full of obstetricians and gynecologists about TTTS. As she turned to the projection screen behind her, she caught Derek sneaking into the back of the room from the corner of her eye. She didn't notice that she smiled for the rest of her presentation. She didn't notice that she started gesturing more and more with her left hand. She didn't notice that Derek was smiling right back at her. All she noticed was the feeling in her chest as if a knot had just come loose; she could breathe again.

"Thank you all so much for listening, and I hope this helps should any of you encounter TTTS in your practice," Addison wrapped up. As people began to leave, she went back to the podium—she hated standing behind those pretentious blocks of wood, opting instead to walk around the room—and gathered her notes and her black Bottega Veneta bag. Turning around, she saw a beaming Derek standing before her. "Hey," she greeted fondly.

"Hey," he whispered, placing his hands on her waist and bringing her in for a small, sweet kiss like the ones they used to share when they were _truly_ married.

Pulling away only enough to speak, Addison smiled. "You know, we've gotten really good at acting married," she mused. She cocked her head to the side and allowed her grin to widen. It felt nice to have him hold her like this again, like she mattered.

"Yeah, we have," Derek agreed. "And just think, this is only Day Two out of a week-long conference. By Sunday, we'll be pros." That earned a small laugh from the redhead, which Derek secretly reveled in before changing the subject. "So your session seems to have gone well."

The pair broke their embrace and began walking out of the lecture hall, but Derek kept one arm around her waist that hugged her closer to him. "It did," Addison said. "Apparently, about 97 percent of the country's gynecologists have never even studied TTTS because it's so rare, so there were a lot of questions." They were back in the hotel lobby, waiting for the elevator so they could drop off their notes in their room before heading out for lunch. "How did yours go?"

"It went well. Luckily, people mainly focused on the one successful patient and not the eleven unsuccessful ones, so it was pretty smooth sailing for me," Derek answered, smiling at a passing pair of doctors they'd known when they still practiced in New York.

"Oh, I wish I could have been there," Addison declared as the red light above the elevator illuminated. "I would have been there, too, if they hadn't scheduled my lecture at the same time as yours. I love hearing you speak."

The couple stepped into the elevator as soon as the doors opened, and as the doors slid shut, Derek stepped even closer to his "wife" while she pressed the button for their floor and whispered huskily in her ear, "I'm sure you'll find a way to make it up to me."

Two sets of notes and a very expensive purse dropped to the floor of the cabin, and within seconds, Addison was pushed up against the wall, kissing Derek for all she was worth. Using her now free hands, she tugged at his perfectly coiffed brown waves and his strong neck, yearning for closer contact, for more of his lips.

The elevator slowed to a halt, culminating in an obnoxiously loud _ding!_ that broke the lusty spell that had befallen the two surgeons. They both crouched to hurriedly gather their things and straightened just in time for the doors to reveal possibly the last person either of them expected to see.

"C-Captain," Addison sputtered. Standing before them, in all his silver-haired glory, was none other than Addison's father, standing at ease with his hands in his pants pockets and a smooth smile on his face.

"Hello, Addie," he responded pleasantly. He took in whom his daughter stood beside and masked his surprise so well that it almost seemed he knew Derek would be there. "Derek, nice to see you again."

"I hope all is well with you and Bizzy, Captain," Derek replied shakily. Stepping in the doorframe of the elevator so the doors wouldn't slide shut, Derek allowed Addison to make her way out of the cabin as steadily as possible.

"What are you doing here?" she asked him as she began to inch toward her and Derek's room, assuming the men would follow.

"The coordinators of the CME called me and said they needed a speaker at the last minute, so I'm leading a seminar on teaching med students tomorrow," Addison's father answered. "I heard that you were leading one, yourself."

"Yeah, I just finished giving it, actually," Addison called over her shoulder. She reached their hotel room, but she hesitated when she realized the Captain would wonder why she and Derek were sharing a room. In fact, she was surprised that he hadn't noticed their wedding rings, yet. "Derek, could I talk to you?" Derek, looking slightly flustered, immediately acquiesced and stepped inside the room as if it was hers to invite him into. Before she followed him in, Addison looked at her father—who had curiosity painted all over his face—and excused, "I'll be just a second. How about you go to your room, freshen up, and we'll meet you for lunch in ten minutes?" Derek, who was now safely hidden by the door, hit Addison lightly on her elbow for proposing such a meeting. She responded with a blind whack that landed on his shoulder.

Eyeing her warily, the Captain slowly accepted the offer, "I'll be in the lobby."

"Okay, see you then." Then, as quickly as human anatomy would allow, Addison shut the door in his face. Turning around, she leaned against the door and saw that Derek's face was a mirror of her own: pure panic. "What the hell are we going to do?"

"Why would you invite him to lunch?" Derek demanded instead of answering her question. He started pacing back and forth across the expansive room, which, thanks to hotel housekeeping, no longer smelled like sex.

"It was all I could think of to get him to go away so we could figure out what to tell him," Addison supplied desperately. "I can't handle dealing with my father right now, Derek." Her voice started to break as she remembered his and Bizzy's horrifying visit to LA eight months ago. "I just can't."

Derek didn't even register crossing the room. All he registered was the distress that colored her voice and then the feeling of her burying her head in his shoulder and clinging to his shirt like it was a lifeline as he wrapped his arms around her small frame. "Shhh…" he soothed, rubbing her back, "It'll all be okay." Pulling back and peering into Addison's face, he gently brushed a short strand of scarlet hair away from her face and tucked it behind her ear. "Would it be easier if we acted married in front of him, too?"

Nodding, Addison looked up at Derek with thankful eyes. "He's still going to ask questions, though," she pointed out. "He came to LA a while back, and he knew I wasn't seeing anyone then. He definitely knew that you and I hadn't been in contact since I moved."

"How did he know that?" he asked quietly.

"Archer told me right before he left that he'd told Bizzy the current state of my…romantic existence," Addison explained, a hint of suppressed irritation at her brother sneaking into her voice. "There's no way Bizzy wouldn't have told the Captain."

"Well, we'll just have to figure something out if he asks anything, okay?"

"Thank you, Derek," Addison expressed wholeheartedly.

With a smile, Derek brought the redhead in for another hug. "Hey, what are fake husbands for?"

**8D**

The wind bit at the three doctors' faces as they ducked into Sardi's for lunch. Silence consumed them until they ordered their food—Shrimp Sardi for Addison, Spinach Cannelloni au Gratin for Derek and Steak Tartar for the Captain—, when the Captain finally commented on the oddity of his daughter's choice of companion for their outing.

"So would you mind explaining to me why Derek is joining us for lunch, Addison?"

Addison and Derek shared a look, and Derek squeezed her hand encouragingly under the table. And so the interrogation began.

"Derek is my husband," Addison stated half-timidly, half-defiantly. In her own mind, Addison quietly added, _at least for our time in New York, he is._

Shock flew across the Captain's face as if he'd been slapped with it, and his eyes immediately flashed to Addison's left hand that rested on the table. Two gold bands, one with small clusters of diamonds surrounding a larger solitaire diamond and one embedded with diamonds all around it, lay nestled on her fourth finger. For once, the Captain was speechless. All he could think to say was, "Why weren't we invited to the wedding?"

"Oh, we didn't have a big ceremony," Derek rushed to inform his former father-in-law. Unfortunately, that brought the Captain's gaze to him, and he'd wanted to avoid that. The Captain always intimidated him. "We actually came back here, and we only had two witnesses." Derek squeezed Addison's hand under the table again, hoping she'd catch on.

She did. Squeezing his hand in return, she went over it in her head. If they played their cards right, they might get out of this lunch without outright lying—_except for when you told him Derek was your husband._ "It happened so quickly that we didn't really have time to invite that many people," she explained.

"I thought you had another fiancée," the Captain remarked suspiciously, "a younger woman."

Derek looked accusingly at the woman sitting next to him, who quickly defended herself. "Blame Naomi for sleeping with my brother and giving him all the details of my life I refused to give him myself," she hissed.

Turning back to the Captain, Derek scrambled for a believable response. "Meredith turned out to be too young to handle an adult relationship without any drama, much less a marriage," he excused. A scrap of wonder entered his voice when he realized that every word of what he'd just uttered rang true.

The Captain opened his mouth to continue the inquiry, but at that moment the food came, and silence fell once again. The seconds drew out to eternity, and the only sound coming from their table was due to the clinking of silverware.

Addison dabbed her mouth with her napkin before reaching for her wine glass. Clearing her throat, she tried to start up some awkward small talk. "So how're Bizzy, and, um, Susan?" she inquired, this time very timidly.

"Susan?" Derek whispered in her ear. Addison gave him a look promising that she'll tell him all about it later, but she remained silent in order to allow her father a chance to speak.

"They're fine, Addison," the Captain replied succinctly. "Though I'd rather not discuss that here."

Silence again.

**8D**

"Oh, my god, I thought we'd never get out of there," Addison gasped as soon as their hotel room door was shut behind them.

"I feel like I need a couple thousand decontamination showers just to get the stench of nervousness and deceit off my skin," Derek proclaimed, shrugging out of his jacket.

"Ditto." Addison walked over and joined Derek, who was sitting on the bed. "I have a feeling this is all going to blow up in our faces as soon as we go back to our normal lives," she confided.

"Me, too," Derek agreed. He cocked his head to the side and stared at his ex-wife, considering something.

"What?" she asked, unnerved by his glance.

"I know we said last night would be just the one night, but we've already blurred that line in the elevator…" he trailed off.

"…And?" Addison prompted.

Derek took a deep breath before finishing. "We're already married in public, and we keep acting like we're married in private. If it's all going to come back and bite us in the ass, we might as well make the most of it." Addison eyed him incredulously, and he could tell from her expression she could have sworn she heard him wrong. "I'll let you think that over while I take a shower." He pulled his sweater over his head and placed it on the bed beside her. "I'll leave the door open in case you make a decision," he hinted, walking toward the bathroom.

Addison grasped his wrist and kept him from completely disappearing into the bathroom. "What about Meredith?" she solicited nervously.

Derek paused, turning around slowly. "When I told your father the deal with Meredith, I realized I wasn't lying at all." He watched Addison's pale blue eyes steadily light up with hope. "I've had more fun and felt better with you in the last two days than I have in the three years that I've been with Meredith," he professed. He could tell from her face that he'd already won her over, so he started walking backwards, leading Addison by the hand to the bathroom. "So…what do you think?"

"Just be careful, Derek," Addison finally warned, nodding to the shower. "Don't forget what happened on our honeymoon."

**A/N: Okay, so this isn't as long as my whopping 4,000+ word first chapter, but seriously? Even this chapter is a longer chapter than my usual ones. Hopefully it'll make up for my delays in updating, and hopefully it'll garner another 31 reviews. God, that was an amazing feeling. **_**Please**_** give me that feeling again and REVIEW!**


	3. Through the Bedroom Door

Gorgeous

A **Grey's Anatomy **fic by Gigi

**Disclaimer:** I obviously do not own a single shred of Grey's Anatomy, its characters or Shonda, otherwise you would be seeing my story lines Thursdays at 9 on ABC, not on _this_.

Chapter 3: Through the Bedroom Door

**A/N: Once again, I am **_**so pumped**_** that people are enjoying this story! In two chapters, I've gotten more reviews than some fics that have seven or eight chapters in them. That's **_**huge**_**, and I really appreciate it. Hopefully, this huge response will keep on coming. Enjoy!**

Addison's eyelids fluttered open at the sound of her BlackBerry blaring obnoxiously, begging to either be picked up or thrown against the wall. Groaning, she turned her head toward the LCD digital clock on the nightstand and seriously considered doing the latter when she saw it was five thirty in the morning. Only one person could be calling that early. Bizzy.

Mumbling underneath her breath, she finally reached and retrieved her phone, squinting in the bright light the screen gave off when she held it close to her face to read the caller ID. Yep. Mommy Dearest was calling.

"Hello?" she greeted blearily.

"You got _married_ and didn't _tell me_?" her mother's shrill voice demanded from the other end of the line. As soon as her mother started talking—ranting, more like—about how much she'd done for Addison, and how she deserved to know when her own daughter had remarried her ex-husband, Addison slipped out of bed and started putting on a robe. Unfortunately, the culmination of the ringing phone, the screeching from Bizzy and the movement of Addison leaving the bed was enough to rouse Derek from his exhausted slumber. When he saw his "wife" dressing herself in a soft, plush white robe, he made a face and reached for the tie.

"Stop that," Addison hissed, lightly slapping his hand away from the belt and tightening it.

"What did you just say?" Bizzy asked, affronted.

"I wasn't talking to you, Mother," Addison explained exasperatedly as she started meandering around the hotel room.

"It's rude to have a conversation with someone else while you're on the phone, Addison," her mother scolded.

"I'm well aware," the redhead answered dryly. "Anyway, you were saying?"

Derek watched in the weak light of the sun just starting its ascent from the point where it still wasn't visible on the horizon as Addison continued to pace around in an annoyed manner while her mother pattered on about how betrayed she felt. Finally, Addison decided she had had enough and stopped walking – conveniently right next to Derek's side of the bed.

"Look, Bizzy," Addison started, not noticing Derek's slow, but steady removal of the belt that held the robe closed. "I'm really sorry I didn't tell you about Derek and me, and I promise that next month, we will come and visit you, and then you can reconnect with your son-in-law, but right now I have to go." By this time, Addison felt a tugging on her waist, thanks to Derek's insistence that she get back into bed. Turning her head over her shoulder to look at him, she saw that he had that mischievous spark in his eyes. That could only mean—"Bye!" she squealed before dissolving into giggles at Derek's fingers attacking her stomach to make her fall back onto the bed with him. "Be patient!" Addison admonished playfully, hanging up her phone and letting Derek pull her in for a lengthy kiss.

"Good morning," Derek smiled when they had separated.

"Morning," Addison replied sarcastically. "Bizzy's livid."

"What else is new?" Derek asked wryly. He inched the robe open so that he could have a _really_ good morning, the way they'd used to wake each other up back when they were first married.

"Well, you're going to have to pull yourself away from Seattle for a weekend next month," Addison continued, ignoring his advances so that she could focus on getting across to him. "My mother is insisting we go see her in Connecticut so we can start making it up to her for not letting her know about the 'wedding.'"

"Next month?" Derek repeated, to which Addison gave a tentative nod, biting her lip softly in apprehension. All she could think of was how much she was enjoying this—and how much she wanted to fake being married to him. She didn't want him to say no. "I could do that."

Addison's face lit up. "Really?" Now it was Derek's turn to nod, except his was far from apprehensive. With a squeal, she wrapped her arms around his neck and brought him in for another long, thankful kiss. "Thank you, thank you, thank you," she expressed when she pulled away. "You just saved me from a _very_ long and unpleasant conversation with my mother about lying about my marital status."

"Glad to be of service," Derek laughed. "Now take off that robe so I can have a proper wake up call."

**8D**

Day Three of the conference consisted mostly of Addison and Derek floating around and visiting whatever lectures suited their fancy. Well, they floated around until two o'clock, when Addison's lecture began, and he'd insisted that his daughter and newly reinstated son-in-law attend. Why, neither Addison nor Derek had a clue. But then again, with the Captain, the "why" never really made a difference. When the Captain wanted you to do something, you did it. Questioning it would only give you a headache.

So at two o'clock, Addison and Derek filed into the lecture hall behind a crowd of people who were obviously professors at various medical schools. They even recognized a few as their former teachers at Columbia Med. The hall was set up in rows of long desks that each ran roughly half the width of the room to allow for an aisle between the left and right columns. Addison and Derek took two seats in the middle row on the right hand side so that they were neither too close nor too far away from the Captain; either one would have excited comment from him had they not sat exactly the right distance away from him. The Captain himself stood beside the podium at the front of the hall, smiling serenely at the group as he waited, with his hands in his pockets and his weight on one leg, for everyone to find their seats. His eyes alighted on his little redhead and her companion, and his smile grew just a hair bigger for them. More for her than for the companion, though. Derek didn't need a crystal ball to know that.

Addison sat with her legs crossed and her left hand intertwined with Derek's right. While she was riveted by listening to her father speak—she told Derek that it reminded her of when she was nine and sat in the back of his classes removing the skin off a hotdog—Derek spent the majority of the time not paying the slightest attention to the Captain and simply gazing at the two rings glittering on Addison's fourth finger. He remembered the day he grasped her left hand and touched two strikingly similar rings on that same finger, all but glaring at Addison for still wearing them right after the divorce had been finalized. Now he came close to stroking those rings, mentally slapping himself for being so harsh and heartless towards her during her first—and only—year in Seattle.

That memory, that regret, was like a cold rush of water being poured onto his head, and he wanted desperately for that sensation to subside. Leaning over, he whispered, "Hey, Addie, will you go out to dinner with me tonight?"

Addison's face transformed from being one of interest and focus to being one of shock and curiosity. Turning her head slowly, she searched Derek for any indication that he was joking. "Like on a date?" she replied just as softly. He nodded. "Seriously?" He nodded again. A look of wonderment entered her eyes as a smile inched its way onto her face. "I'd love to."

"Great," he breathed. He kissed her lightly on the cheek. "I'll make reservations at your favorite restaurant, okay?"

"Okay," Addison smiled before turning back to face forward. After a few seconds of listening to her father, she retracted her hand from Derek's and instead wrapped her arms around his and leaned her head on his shoulder. As she did, a small, softly spoken sentence escaped her throat that kept a light feeling in Derek's chest for the rest of the lecture. "I'm really happy you're my husband."

It wasn't even those six words themselves that set a spring in his proverbial step. Of course, they did their part in making him grin like an idiot, but that wasn't all. She'd left out any insinuation that their relationship was a fake one.

Derek's eyes widened when he realized _that_ was why he was so giddy all of a sudden.

In three short days, he had fallen in love with the woman resting her head on his shoulder all over again, hook, line and sinker.

**A/N: Okay, so now we're at about the length of my normal chapters. The previous two chapters were like normal chapters on steroids, but, like steroids, too much of more than normal can have its detrimental effects. Maybe not to you awesome readers, but to me, the writer who can't be so exhausted from one chapter that she can't update any of her other fics. I hope you weren't spoiled by my long first two chapters, though! Don't worry. The chapters may be shorter now, but the writing, hopefully, will stay as consistent as possible. I mean, I hope I'll improve over time, but it shouldn't get any **_**worse**_**. I'm rambling now, so I'll end with a closing statement: REVIEW!**


	4. In a Far Off Place

Gorgeous

A **Grey's Anatomy **fic by Gigi

**Disclaimer:** I obviously do not own a single shred of Grey's Anatomy, its characters or Shonda, otherwise you would be seeing my story lines Thursdays at 9 on ABC, not on _this_.

Chapter 4: In a Far Off Place

**A/N: So normally, I wouldn't update this out of order and so quickly, so for you excited people, thank picric drea. We have a deal that if I update this fic, she'll update Complications, which I have recently become addicted to. So that's why I'm updating so quickly, so I think you're going to enjoy it!**

**A/N 2: Btdubs, the post-it marriage never happened. Derek and Meredith are still just engaged in this. Besides, how the hell do you go through a post-it divorce?**

_In three short days, he had fallen in love with the woman resting her head on his shoulder all over again, hook, line and sinker._

Derek and Addison sat across from each other in their dimly lit private dining room at Le Bernardin, her favorite place to go for French food. Absently, he recalled that it had been in this very room that he'd decided he wanted to marry her.

Addison was intent on her menu, trying in vain to remember what her favorite dish had been so long ago. The candlelight provided just enough illumination to make the two rings on her left finger sparkle like two small stars had come to rest on her hand. Derek's eyes were fixated on those rings, itching to take them off her hand and propose to her in reality.

The very thought in itself scared Derek beyond belief. How had just three days with this woman managed to reawaken all his feelings for her enough for him to want to marry her again? How had three days erased all the hurt and problems they had toward the tail end of their marriage? How had three days been long enough for this ravishing redhead to consume all his thoughts and push aside a mousy, adorably naïve blonde?

He averted his eyes back to his menu when he saw Addison look up at him questioningly, his mind still racing. He needed to sort out his feelings for his ex-wife-slash-pretend-wife-wife and his feelings for his ex-dirty-mistress-turned-fiancée. Preferably before he opened his mouth on this date. No need to give her false hopes or unnecessarily upset her. No, he needed to figure this out and _fast_.

Chancing a glance at Addison, Derek was relieved to see that she still hadn't found her forgotten favorite dish. She was still biting her bottom lip in frustration and completely oblivious to anything other than the menu in front of her. He still had time.

First, Meredith. He knew he loved her, and he knew her age. Her age didn't use to upset him—it was just a number, after all—but her immaturity _had_ been upsetting him of late. He sometimes found himself wondering whether or not she had just the slightest tendency toward bipolar disorder. Of course, as a doctor, he knew she didn't have it actually, but he couldn't stop those thoughts from sneaking up on him every once in a while.

But she was still a good person. She had a sense of humor, and she had this childlike innocence that made her want to see the good in everything and everybody. Even when he'd still been married to Addison, and he knew her friends hated his wife just for being his wife, she'd confessed Addison was all but impossible to truly hate. She'd called her "annoyingly kind" and "painfully smart," among other things. Had she been a vindictive person, as many wronged women often were, she wouldn't have found the strength to say those things.

That was true, actually. If Meredith was anything, she was strong. She'd been dealt some really crappy cards in her lifetime, and she had somehow managed to survive it. That was likely a large reason behind his love for her: they were both wounded, and he thought they'd be able to heal each other.

But he _was_ healed, he realized. And she was well on her way to being healed herself, if she wasn't already there. Now that they didn't need to lick each other's wounds, did they need each other? Were they _happy_?

If he was going to be brutally honest to himself, the answer was no. Neither of them needed saving anymore, and they didn't know how to be together without tending to the other's emotional hurts. The drama that had always been in their relationship had been what kept them going.

Now, Addison. Once again, Derek's eyes flickered to the woman sitting opposite him. She was still stumped. Good.

He was stumped, too, for that matter. What _did_ he feel for Addison?

She was beautiful, obviously. She walked into a room, and everyone knew it. The room would grow pale except for that one bright spot where she stood, and she had a confidence about her that drew people to her. She had a ready smile, despite what she'd been through in the past few years, and she still believed in soul mates and true love. She was still an idealist, throughout all her mistakes and the mistakes of other that affected her. She'd _lived_, and she still managed to be an optimist, even when reality so often liked to smack her in the face. After all that, just the fact that she could laugh—with a laugh that was so infectious it had you laughing right alongside her before you realized you had even smiled—amazed him.

For Addison, it wasn't just a matter of surviving the bad stuff, like it was for Meredith. Meredith had had most of the bad things in her life thrust upon her. She hadn't had a choice to but to suffer through them. There was a certain strength that came from knowing it wasn't your fault when something happened. Addison wasn't anywhere near wounded when Derek met her, and he had thought her strong back then because nothing seemed to hurt her. Her childhood full of standards and society, yet remarkably absent of loving gestures, would have scarred anyone else. But she used it to motivate herself to be better, to exceed even her parents' insurmountable expectations.

But she was flawed. Those flaws were what threw the bad things at her. Well, those flaws and his own indifference towards her in their marriage. Her own mistakes were what wounded her, what ended their marriage concretely. She had to deal with more guilt than Meredith had to, and guilt could break the strongest person. But it hadn't broken her.

_But she cheated on you with your best friend_, a small nagging voice in his head pointed out. _ She hurt you more than a woman had ever hurt you. What's to say she won't do it again?_

_I won't give her a reason to do it again_, he growled back at the voice, realizing with a start that he'd just made his decision.

"Are you ready to order, sir?"

Derek's head whipped up from the menu at the sound of the waiter's patient voice. He already held Addison's menu in his hands and was looking at him expectantly.

"Yes, sorry," Derek excused. Glancing at the menu quickly, he picked out the first thing he saw. "I'll have the lobster."

"Okay, I'll be back with your wine shortly," the waiter announced once he'd gathered Derek's menu and written down his order.

When he left, Derek looked back at Addison. "Wine?"

Addison couldn't help the small laugh that bubbled out of her. "I ordered the cabernet we used to get all the time. You were really out of it, weren't you?" Derek nodded, going slightly red in the face. "What were you thinking about?"

Shrugging, Derek sipped his water to buy himself time. He couldn't very well tell her what he was actually thinking. "Just about how beautiful you look tonight," he answered smoothly with a smile. His smile broadened when he saw pink tinge her cheeks. "So did you finally figure out your favorite dish?"

"No," Addison pouted. "I ended up getting the calamari. That lobster you ordered sounded pretty delicious though."

"Yeah, that's because the lobster _was_ your favorite dish," Derek recalled with a chuckle as Addison's pale blue eyes widened in disbelief.

"You _knew_?" she demanded. "You knew and you didn't tell me?" Derek burst out laughing when she threw a roll at him. "Jerk."

"Well, to be fair, you never actually asked me if I remembered," he pointed out, ducking as another roll flew for his head, still unable to contain his laughter, especially when he saw the telltale signs of Addison fighting her own amusement from escaping.

**8D**

"I had a really great time tonight, Derek," Addison declared shyly as they walked down the hallway to their room hand-in-hand.

"Good, because I did, too," he answered. "I haven't laughed like that in ages."

"Me neither." They reached the door to their hotel room, and Addison leaned her back against it to look Derek in the eye. "Derek, what are we doing?"

The question wasn't unexpected, but it still took Derek a few seconds to formulate an answer to that. "I wasn't entirely honest with you before, when you asked me what I was thinking about when we were ordering our food."

"Oh?"

"I was thinking about you and me, and I was thinking about Meredith and me," he confessed. "I needed to figure all of that out, because lately all I have been able to think about has been taking those rings off your finger and propose to you for real."

Addison's mouth dropped open. "You-you wanted to propose to me for real?" He nodded, blushing again. He hadn't blushed this much in years, either. "Derek, I've enjoyed these past few days, really, I have. But it's only been three days, and I—"

Derek cut her off. "Addison, don't worry. I'm not going to propose to you anytime soon—" she visibly relaxed at that statement. "—But the idea has been floating around in my head all day, and I want to have that possibility for us again."

She stared at him for a second before slowly asking, "So what are you saying?"

Taking a deep breath, Derek took the plunge. "I want to see you again. I want to _keep_ seeing you. I want to be us again," he announced.

All the breath left Addison's lungs, and she couldn't form any words. Her eyes were still as wide as saucers, and they showed no sign of going back to normal anytime soon.

**A/N: Gotta love a good cliffhanger, don't you? I'm not normally this nice about Meredith, but I got a review in chapter 2 that pointed out to me that I don't want to be the person who has to bash Meredith to make Derek choose Addison. So I decided I wouldn't be. But seriously, what do you think? REVIEW! (Picric drea, I better see an update soon!)**


	5. When We Can't Be Seen

Gorgeous

A **Grey's Anatomy **fic by Gigi

**Disclaimer:** I obviously do not own a single shred of Grey's Anatomy, its characters or Shonda, otherwise you would be seeing my story lines Thursdays at 9 on ABC, not on _this_.

Chapter 5: When We Can't Be Seen

**A/N: So I'm kind of really, insanely sorry for taking over six months to update this. I hope that you guys are used to my really crappy updating habits and think well enough of this story to stick it through. I hope you enjoy my present to all you amazingly loyal and wonderful readers!**

_Taking a deep breath, Derek took the plunge. "I want to see you again. I want to _keep_ seeing you. I want to be us again," he announced._

_All the breath left Addison's lungs, and she couldn't form any words. Her eyes were still as wide as saucers, and they showed no sign of going back to normal anytime soon._

The longer Addison stayed quiet—well, as quiet as one could be when one was sputtering in shock, unable to find words—the more and more anxious Derek became. Doubt crept across his front of determination, spider-webbing it with cracks. It would only need a good hit to break it all down and leave him defenseless. And Addison held the sledgehammer, still unsure of whether or not to use it.

"Say something," he almost begged.

Finally, Addison responded, blinking several times in order to make up the extended period she'd gone without closing her eyes. She squeezed her eyes shut in consternation. "Um," she began, "I promised myself that I'd never do to another woman what Meredith did to me."

Derek's heart sank as he started to realize where this was going. "Addison, I—"

"Uh, uh," she cut him off. "Let me finish. I don't blame Meredith or even resent her for doing what she did. I know she tried not to, and I know she never did anything with you with a clear conscience." She paused, taking a deep breath before she could continue. "But I still never want to be the woman who takes another woman's guy, no matter how much I want to."

A few beats passed after her last words before Derek spoke once more. "So…what are you saying?"

Addison sighed, feeling helpless. "We've already cheated on Meredith, and we're kind of committed to this whole marriage thing at least for another month because of Bizzy." She looked up and saw the desperation and hurt swimming in her ex-husband's eyes. Unable to help herself, she reached up and stroked his cheek softly. "I _want_ to be us again, too, Derek. But I won't let that happen until you're no longer cheating on Meredith."

Understanding and something akin to hope stole across the neurosurgeon's face. "So you're saying you want me to break up with Meredith?"

"If you want to actually be with me again, yes, but don't do it _just_ for me," Addison said resolutely. "I don't want a pair of panties in your pocket to do the job for you, but I don't want you to leave her for another woman either."

"What?" Derek asked, confused.

Addison shook her head almost in amusement. "If you leave Meredith just to be with me, you'll regret it and probably change your mind later. I couldn't survive that, and neither could you, because you'd just be leaving me for another woman again. If you're going to break things off with Meredith, do it because _you_ want to," she urged, "not because _I_ want you to."

Derek nodded slowly. "Okay, I'll talk to her when I get back to Seattle," he declared in a soft, determined voice. "I'll make sure she knows that I'm not just breaking up with her to be with someone else."

A small smile worked its way onto her face, relief coming off her in waves. "Thank you, Derek," she said quietly.

Once the pair walked inside and looked at the king-sized bed, Addison froze. After this rather enlightening discussion, neither of them was quite in the mood for anything other than sleep. But up until then, the nights were always spent in each other's arms in post-coital bliss. Not once had they just gone straight to sleep. She couldn't help but notice the difference.

It was easier to fall asleep in a person's arms after sex; to fall asleep in a person's arms in the absence of sex…meant intimacy. It meant they were _them_ again. That they were satisfied just by being close to one another, and they didn't need lust to desire the other person's company. Could they really do that yet? Wouldn't it be going against all that she just firmly told her ex-husband?

"Addison?" Derek's voice broke into her reverie.

"Yeah?" she answered absently.

"Are you okay?"

_Calm down, Addie_, she thought to herself. _It's not like you're not already intimate with him. Dinner proved that. Stop freaking out and just _sleep_. Nothing's official yet so just _stop_!_ She surprised herself with the vehemence behind her own thoughts, but they still rang true nonetheless. She smiled and gave Derek's hand a squeeze. "Yeah, just tired."

With that, she let go of the hand she'd been holding since getting off the elevator and left to get ready for bed. Within ten minutes, the room was dark as Derek climbed under the covers next to Addison. He gave her a quick kiss on her cheek before wrapping his arm around her waist and bringing her back flush against his chest. "Thank you," he whispered into her hair.

Puzzled, she turned her head as far as she could to look at him. "What are you thanking me for?"

"For forgiving me." Derek's bright blue eyes sparkled in the darkness as they caught the moonlight spilling in from the window. One look into those eyes told Addison just how grateful he was that she was giving him another chance. Guilt filled Addison looking at those eyes. He seemed to have completely forgotten that she'd been the one who effectively ruined their marriage.

"There's nothing to forgive," she insisted softly. Derek responded with a kiss before she turned back around. "Goodnight, Derek."

"Goodnight, Addison."

**8D**

Day Four of the medical conference began with a bleary-eyed Addison as she watched Derek hurry to get dressed and pack at the same time. In her pre-coffee state of mind, she was hopelessly confused. She'd woken up to Derek's phone practically buzzing off the nightstand at four in the morning. The next thing she knew, he was rushing around the hotel room and gathering all his belongings.

Groggy and frustrated, Addison sat up and ran a hand through her tangled mane of red hair. "Mind letting me in on what you're doing?" she asked in the middle of a yawn.

Derek turned away from his suitcase, which had clothes spilling out of it, with a harried expression on his face. "I have to go back to Seattle," he declared.

That was absolutely no help. "Why?"

"The Board is trying to force Richard out." Addison, especially with no caffeine in her system, had no control over her facial expressions and felt her jaw drop. "That was the Chairman of the Board calling to ask me to meet with them as soon as possible. They already bought me a plane ticket back to Seattle for one o'clock."

After a few seconds of spluttering, the redhead got out of bed to help him pack. "I don't get it. Why do they need to meet with you?"

"Jennings came by the hospital a few weeks ago, and he hinted that the Board wanted me to be the next Chief of Surgery," Derek explained, handing his clothes to Addison to fold and put into the suitcase. "I just didn't realize they were thinking about making me Chief so soon."

Addison froze in her ministration at his words. "So you'd be helping the Board force Richard out?"

Her voice and her entire stance were stiff, and Derek's voice carried the same feeling of betrayal. "I don't know what I'm going to do, honestly," he said tiredly. "I don't want to do that to Richard. I don't think he deserves it."

"Has the hospital been doing badly?" She resumed folding.

"We fell in the rankings. We're not even top ten anymore, and it's getting to Richard more than he'd like to admit."

"What are you going to tell the Board?"

Derek sighed. "I'm going to tell them they need to discuss the situation with Richard first before I make any commitments." He stood up and rubbed his face as if wanting to wipe away the intense conflict of interest going on in his head. "It's all I can think to do."

Addison bit her lip and zipped up the suitcase. "I just hope it's enough," she murmured.

**8D**

At the end of the day, Addison walked into her hotel room and collapsed on the bed in exhaustion. Every lecture, every social event that day had been nothing but a chore to attend. Her old friends and acquaintances kept asking her where her husband was, and it was all they seemed to focus on. It was as if her own presence didn't matter if that of her husband's was missing. It was one part about being married that never sat well with Addison; her individual identity disappeared and she became defined solely by her husband. But it was never that way with the husband.

She turned her head to look at the digital clock on the bedside table. Eight o'clock. Derek should have been home and settled in by then. His meeting with the Board wasn't until the next day.

As if her thoughts prompted him, Addison's phone lit up with Derek's picture, name and number while it buzzed to announce he was calling. She grabbed it from where it rested on the bed beside her and answered with a simple, "Hey." She was too tired to say anything more.

"We have a problem," came Derek's voice through the small BlackBerry speaker. He was whispering.

Addison sat up in trepidation. "What's wrong? Where are you?"

"In the bathroom. Meredith thinks I'm showering, but that's not the problem."

"Then what _is_ the problem, Derek?"

"I forgot to take off the ring before coming back, and Meredith saw it."

That _was_ a problem. A _big_ problem. Now, if Derek broke up with her, she'd see it as if he was leaving her for another woman, the very thing Addison had been trying to avoid. She fell back onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling with widened eyes. She didn't even register the single word falling past her lips.

"Shit."

**A/N: So what'd you think? This chapter was kind of difficult to write because all I knew about it going in was that they couldn't be blissfully happy anymore. That sounds mean, but even **_**they**_** would get sick of themselves if they continued in that direction. I haven't yet decided whether or not to keep Richard's drinking problem in the mix, and don't forget Addison hasn't been back to Seattle in two years, when she left. I hope you enjoyed it and **_**please**_** review!**


End file.
